


Silence

by Flatfootmonster



Category: Original Work
Genre: Acceptance, Atmospheric, Bittersweet, Kinda, Metaphysics, Moving On, Other, Short One Shot, Spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 10:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flatfootmonster/pseuds/Flatfootmonster
Summary: Something changed, something is different. I should run, I should grab something heavy enough to do irreversible damage—if it's called for. But instead my feet are taking me towards the door. I can't pull my eyes away from the threshold that my feet move towards in an irresistible fervour.





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I want to thank you if even made it this far. I know typically A03 is where we read fan fic, so I'm truly not expecting anything monumental in terms of traffic. So thank you for taking a peek, it means so much. 
> 
> This is my first original short story, inspired by a quote from Andre Aciman. When he was asked how he felt about his book (Call Me By Your Name) being made into a film, one of the things he said is that he cannot write silence. This idea of writing silence bloomed in my head as a writing exercise and then turned into this short story. There may be some Pratchett influence, if you're a fan you'll get what I mean.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!  
> Love, Becs

_Something_ woke me. And I’m not sure what that _thing_ is; it wasn’t a sound or a movement, there was just a tangible but elusive change. I could feel it creep over the ancient floorboards and the fresh cotton linens before it encroached upon my bare skin. Now the hair on my arm stands on end. It reminds me of that moment on a hot summer day (where you’d lay sprawled on your back, basking in the rays) then all of a sudden—and completely without warning—a dark cloud would pass in front of the sun. That invisible change in pressure and temperature from a simple mass of watery vapour blocking you from a burning ball of gas that’s 92.06 million miles away. That’s about the best I can do at explaining this _something_.

The first thing that registers, as my body stirs and I open my eyes, is the starlight that’s gathered under the window (it was a full moon last night, that’s why I’m sure it’s the light of the stars despite it being brighter than I’d expect). It outlines the light-weight curtains in a muted silver and spills down the faded and cracked paint before it pools on the floor. In the dead of night it looks like a secret waterfall, hidden within a desolate cavern. The water is frozen in place because it’s a silent show. It didn’t want to attract anyone else’s eyes but my own, and it has found me. Or _I_ found _it_ in the twilight; maybe my dream led me here but for the life of me I can’t remember what passed behind my eyelids before I awoke. But the scene that I _now_ stare at vibrates with energy, inviting me to peer behind the veil. I find it impossible to resist; I _have_ to look. What’s calling to me?

My legs slip between mattress and cover as I push myself up from the bed. The floor is cool against the soles of my feet when they land on the uneven flooring. It has a tendency to complain and creak when it’s walked on, but tonight it’s subdued; perhaps it too is impressed by the vision. The only sound I hear as I make my way to the window is a soft whisk created when my foot passes over wood as I take each step. It’s a gentle _shush_ repeated to the rest of the world, begging that it remains still and reverent.  

The journey is short—as usual—but for some reason it takes longer tonight. Not that my gait is slower than the norm, but the air seems thicker to move through for a reason I can’t fathom. I hesitate as my hand reaches towards the curtain; the material stirs in a breeze and I'm sure I closed the window (the neighbour’s cat tends to make himself at home in any and all available warm spots, his favourite of which seems to be my head). I'm frowning at my outstretched hand as disorientation begins to settle on me. _Does my neighbour have a cat?_ The memory seems as flimsy as a dream fragment.

A breeze moves over the contours of my body and a shudder runs through me, but I don't think it's because of the cool air. Before I can begin to question why I am bare as the day I was born (I wear pyjamas every single night), the angle of the intruding wind takes precedence over any other concern. The balcony door is open; I don't go out there in the winter (with the exception of nights a full and pregnant moon hangs in the sky) and I'm sure this is in fact winter, but I'm now doubtful of even that with my memories warping and fading. Maybe I'm still dreaming? I look towards the door and sure enough—just as my eyes land on the bronze handle—another gust inches the gap wider still.

Fear stirs within me as spirals of energy coil and tighten at my core; I stand statue still. Just as I make the decision to turn back to my bed and rejoin the safety and warmth there, that cloud cuts in front of the sun again. Something changed, something _is_ different. I should run, I should grab something heavy enough to do irreversible damage—if it's called for. But instead my feet are taking me towards the door. I can't pull my eyes away from the threshold that my feet move towards in an irresistible fervour.

My fingertips fall lightly on the handle and it doesn't feel as cold as it should. I'm back to doubting if it's winter. Wasn't I sprawled on my back, basking in the sun yesterday? I'd hold my breath as the door opens towards me, but I don't remember inhaling since I felt that first cloud. The resistance feels too heavy, like I'm pulling the door open through cold, congealed porridge—I should feel my muscles strain with the exertion but all I feel is a curious numbness.

It's when the portal is open that it dawns on me. For the briefest moment though, nothing seems different. The leaves are tinged with silver from the full moon that hangs overhead and everything is as calm and unmoving as every particle was in my room. _Full moon_? But that was yesterday… or was it? I take another step forward, over the threshold, and the wind sighs through the boughs and branches, it's a gasp or the last drop of life leaving a tired old soul. It's at that moment when the air freezes again, just as I begin to ponder what time it might be, that the penny drops.

There's a clock on my mantelpiece, it's been in the master suite generations—as regular and reliable as a pulse. It was still too, there was no ticking of the second hand, no countdown of the moments. No measurement of time. And—just as that curious thought processes—I realise that my own internal timepiece has not made its presence known either; _my heart_ … it's not beating.

I want to scream and the reaction is partly in cold fear to what’s just become clear to me but mostly in retaliation to a sense of acceptance that is flowing through me like a bleak and viscous fluid. It seeps into my lungs before I can utilise them. Can I even scream anymore? Or talk? Can I cry? Before I know what I’m doing, my hand is flat on my chest because my body (if I can still call the vehicle I’m moving within a body) is refusing to accept the intuition that I know to be true. As my skin presses together, I feel it blur. There's a warmth of static energy that seems to build under my palm but there’s no steady thud that has been a constant companion since I was brought wailing into this world.

I'm compelled to turn, to look towards my bed and find the shape under the blankets that I know will be my lifeless anatomy. But—as I try to move—the air before me distorts and fractures like a kaleidoscope of grey and black. It stops me dead but I can't focus on one point of it. My eyes follow the toiling mass and my head begins to spin as the world folds around me at impossible angles.

I settle my gaze at its centre where it doesn't seem to twist, it reminds me of the eye of a storm and—as I continue to look—calm begins to settle on me. I'm enraptured by whatever this is. The only thing I _know_ is that this is where I'm supposed to be right now. A pale mask materializes and I frown in scrutiny at it, it seems an optical illusion. I'm sure if I turned and looked at it from a different angle, it would morph into something different. It's a mirror, reflecting a vague sense of something I can relate to. This _thing_ lends a familiarity to the eyes that fall on it.

I keep gaping and my brain seems as still as everything else has been since I woke. Or did not wake, I suppose. I need to know what happened, whatever remnants of the human I was still ebb and flow beneath the fragile film of my vessel. But as I open my mouth, the presence before me opens its mouth too. I say mouth but it’s merely another dark chasm that matches the ones that are in place of its eyes and—if I look hard—I’m sure I can see whole universes within that deep, eventide that’s beyond. It’s a comforting infinity.

DOES IT MATTER?

I’d say it spoke, but it didn’t make a sound. The silence in this macrocosm prevails but I heard it still, the words vibrate within my skull and resonate in my bones. And somehow I know who this is: Death. Death is correct I suppose, and as I stand before this personified stage of nature—bared, honest and naked—I decide not much matters anymore.

I begin to turn. I now have the courage to do so, or the humanity that made me who I was is being pushed inexorably out by that heavy acceptance and I feel nothing but a terminal need to see what’s now behind me. It’s just a lonely mound—nothing more. One of my feet has pushed out from underneath the covers, five toes point heaven-bound and—even in the dark—I can see discolouration on the sole of my foot. I was in the orchard, barefoot (the neighbour’s cat had a bird, so I rushed out to free the thing despite the freezing, hard packed dirt I had to traverse) and I decided a bath could wait until the morning. Apparently it couldn’t. Is my body still warm?

DOES IT MATTER?

The words are not unkind, in fact there is reassurance there. Death can either read my thoughts or is well versed enough (of course it is) to know the questions that come at this point. There is a surprising absence of sentimentality as I turn away from my body and back to the spectre, I suppose that I have no choice other than forward now.

FORWARD OR LINEAR AND OTIOUS. THERE IS NO GOING BACK.

Linear? I suppose that means to stay like this. Why would anyone do that?

REGRET.

And as Deaths voice unfolds the word privately in the sanctuary of the most central part of my consciousness, it also plants a seed. I now see those things: I left the washing up for the morning, I put off that phone call for a less weary day, I never did go sky diving, and there was that one instance I never said _I love you_ . Regrets push through the topsoil of my mind and spiral out of control, I can remember _everything_ left undone. Unsaid. Untouched. I'm looking into a box overflowing with spools of thread, tangled and unkempt and I can feel something other than acceptance in me. Need. Need to tie up the loose ends.

IS IT ENOUGH?

Is it enough to keep me here—I know Death and I knew this question would come inevitably. I just didn't know that I _knew_ until I stepped out here. And so I think; it's an honest measurement of those threads. There's no desperation, despite the need I feel. The acceptance is almost an equal balance. _Almost_.

I look down at my form for the first time, there seems to be no change that I can recall except a glow to my skin that must be ethereal. I am beautiful like this and the honesty of my admission is overwhelming. When did I last reflect upon myself and find no fault? Have I ever? I feel light and free, those memories keep slipping through my fingers like grains of sand. But I don't tighten my fruitless grip, I simply watch in fascination as those tiny white spheres spiral in to a grand abyss—no bottom or top, no beginning or ending. Memories are for the living.

No, it's not enough. I'm sure if Death could smile that is what it would be doing right now. But where do I go from here?

DOES IT MATTER?

I grin. Truly it does not. The only thing is the unknown, it's all there ever really was. I see that now. And I marvel at the small things that we needed to control: the way we name the days and arrange them into periods of time, the way we schedule meal times, the way we make up social etiquette. It all seems rather absurd not wearing a hat indoors, doesn't it?

My hand pushes forward again, this time I'm absorbed by fascination. My fingers reach the vortex first, dipping into it like a puddle and spreading ripples into the world from that tender contact. As soon as I touch it I feel motion, the world begins to rush past me. I feel leaves brush against my face, soil passes beneath my feet, cloth slides against my skin, air flows through my hair and I realise I can use my lungs because I'm laughing as the wind sighs delighted relief in my ears.

The world collapses in on itself, spinning and whirling like a fairground ride. I feel the last of that tenuous connection to this particular spot in the universe thin and snap. In that moment I hear a noise, the very first one since waking and the very last thing I will ever hear: the gentle count of the second hand ticking.

I am no more here.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> As per usual... kudos and any feedback is very gratefully received!!!
> 
> Thank you again <3


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